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| "Hora Cero" ("Zero Hour") Nº26, June 1958(?) The date is unsure, for only the month is stated, not the year. This striking cover by the master Hugo Pratt, in spite of its "aggressive" angle, aiming directly at the reader, cannot conceal the humanity of the Russian soldier, his supreme tiredness and disenchantment by being involved in the killing and attacking of people of whom he doesn't even know the names... For it was typical of the H. G. Oesterheld war stories (which stablished a very just fame for the author): strain not in false heroics or lots of action, but on the human nature of soldiers, instead, who, after all, were nothing but frightened, stunned human beings thrown in the middle of man-made chaos. One of the most fondly remembered Oesterheld characters, the war corresponsal Ernie Pike (based on the personality of real-life Ernie Pyle, of "G.I. Joe" fame) stated, at the beginning of his first story: "I know this story will not be bought by 'Life' of 'Time', or any other magazine which bears respect for itself. It's, perhaps, a bitter tale. A tale with that bit of grey, of hard, that real life has. A tale without good or bad people, but with a villain, a SUPERVILLAIN, the most hateful of all: WAR!"... That would mark his style from then on, and he made the best realistic and impartial war stories ever read. There were other comics in the mag, but its forte was war tales, in my humble opinion. It was a real pity the publishing venture lasted only a bit more than three years, only two of them with full quality standards. The format was quite small, as a normal mag cut horizontally in half (the other "half" was its companion magazine, "Frontera"), with no colors except on covers, but the supreme excellence of scripts and art got a whole legion of fans, to this very day. (H. G. Oesterheld, the main creative force, was, years later, an unfortunate victim of the "dirty war" of his country, imprisoned and "missing", and finally honored in posthumous form by naming a room of a cultural institute of Buenos Aires after him.) | ||
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